Elizabeth Pettus

Father Thomas Pettus died in Holland c1687

He had only one proven child, Elizabeth Pettus

In 1686, Thomas Pettus II traveled to Holland with power of attorney from the heirs of George Billingsley of Chuckatuck, Virginia, to claim money from the estate of his grandmother, Agatha Billingslee. One of George’s heirs was his half-sister, Mourning Burgh, who had married Thomas Pettus II. Thomas succeeded in getting the money, but he died while still in Holland. Before leaving Virginia, Thomas had made a will in which he had named Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., and Maj. Lewis Burwell as executors. Bacon died in 1692, but Burwell eventually distributed the money to the surviving Billingslee heirs in Virginia except for Mourning. Mourning never got her share, because she had already proved Thomas’s will, which evidently didn’t mention the money! In 1691 Thomas’s former guardian, Nathaniel Bacon, Sr.[*], inventoried Thomas’s estates on the James River, including Littletown and Utopia. The title of the inventory reveals that the goods and chattels then belonged to Thomas’s “Orphand,” but Bacon did not identify the orphan. Stacy and others misread “Orphand” as “Orphans,” but a close inspection of the original document reveals that they were incorrect.In a codicil to his own will made in 1692, Bacon mentioned Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. Thomas Pettus, should she live to be 21. Clearly, Thomas left an orphan daughter, but was she the orphan heir Bacon had in mind when he made the inventory? Was she Thomas’s only child? That question is one of the most important in Pettus genealogy and one that has occupied my thought for many years.

On 2 May 1700, Elizabeth made her will and apparently died on the same day. Several months later, on 4 October, Stephen Pettus of Blisland Parish, New Kent County, Virginia, and certain other parties were grantors in a lease-release conveyance of the Pettus estates to James Bray, Jr., of Wilmington Parish, James City County, Virginia (only the lease deed is still extant). Bray had married Mourning Pettus sometime prior to Bacon taking inventory.

--William Pettus

http://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/pettus/856/

• Col. Nathaniel Bacon Sr., aka "the elder" to distinguish him from his infamous cousin, died March 16, 1692.

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Thomas II had an orphan daughter Elizabeth who died testete in 1700 unmarried. Although her will is no longer extant, Mary Mann, as Elizabeth's executrix, gave POA to James Bray, Jr., to recover certain goods and chattels that had been withheld (presumably by her guardian, Maj. Lewis Burwell) during Elizabeth's lifetime. Mary was the daughter of Edmund Berkeley (proof by documentary evidence). She had no known Pettus connection.

https://www.ancestry.com/boards/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=284&p=surname...

https://genealogyadventures.net/2017/10/23/playing-genealogical-hid...

William Pettus says:

27/10/2019 at 5:08 PM

My forthcoming book will show that the line of descent from Col. Pettus and his English wife (in Virginia) ended in 1700 upon the death of his unmarried granddaughter Elizabeth, who may also have been a minor. Soon after her death, her plantations, including Littletown, were sold to Elizabeth’s stepfather, James Bray, Jr. The grantor in the sale was Stephen Pettus, His identity is the real puzzle. The tribal historian, Bill Deyo, believes that Stephen was the son of Col. Pettus and his first wife, Ka-Okee. Maybe so, but there was an SP of the right age on record in London who may have been the SP named as a Virginia headright in 1637. I think he was the progenitor of the family in America. There is no real question about the identity of Col. Pettus. One of his nephews in England went to court in Norwich to prove his relationship. He had witnesses, including a family member, appear on his behalf. There is only one solution to the question of identity, given the testimony of witnesses and the parish registers he subnitted as evidence. He used the St. Simon and St. Jude register which has the baptism in 1599 of TP, son of TP, mayor of Norwich in 1614 and his wife Cecily King. Others have claimed that Col. Pettus was the son, baptized in 1610 at St. Peter Hungate Church of William Pettus and his wife Mary Gleane. The St. Peter Hungate parish register was not even mentioned in the evidence submitted to the court.

Thomas is believed to have married twice, although there is no record of his first marriage. He had only one documented child, a daughter named Elizabeth. She is named in the will of Nathaniel Bacon, who had been Thomas' guardian. On 15 March, 1691, Bacon wrote, "If Elizabeth Pettice daughter of Mr. Thomas Pettice shall happen to live to the age of twenty-one or be married, ..."

References

• “Genealogies of Virginia Families” By Tylers Quarterly Historical and Geneological Magazine. Page 846. GoogleBooks